


A World in Agony

by lightace



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Brief allusions to torture, Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, During Canon, F/F, Gen, Leliana is Having None of Your Shit, Pre-Relationship, Unhappy Ending, inquisitor goes by Trev, you know how canon goes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 05:14:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18025370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightace/pseuds/lightace
Summary: The Inquisitor lands in the future with Dorian and struggles to face a world she hadn't been able to save. But seeing Leliana hurts the worst.A rewrite of the future section of In Hushed Whispers with an Inquisitor who reacts less than well to the end of the world.





	A World in Agony

**Author's Note:**

> Hello yes, I feed off of your tears. This is not the first time I've had to use the Major Character Death tag, but this has been begging me to write it for forever and I'm actually rather proud of it.
> 
> I've sat on this forever before finally deciding to bite the bullet and post it. I'm sorry. (Not really.)

She lands ankle deep in water and stumbles to her knees, foul-smelling water splashing everywhere. Somewhere to her left, Dorian swears loudly and splashes around in an attempt to keep his balance. Trev rubs away the water on her face and looks up to see a pair of guards goggling at them.

“Shit,” she swears, grasping for the knives on her belt. The movement startles the guards out of their stupor, and they rush forward with yells, roughly knocking open the thin metal door.

Dorian thrusts his palms forward, and flames rush from him toward the guards. One man shrieks and jerks backward, stumbling into the metal bars with his hands flailing frantically at the flames. The other sidesteps and continues toward Trev, sword raised.

She twists and kicks a foot out to catch the guard on the ankle. The man stumbles, giving Trev the time to lunge to her feet and at him with her daggers. The armor they’re wearing isn’t any she recognizes, but every armor has gaps in the same places.

Her left dagger goes into the man’s armpit, slipping under his raised sword arm to sink easily into the unprotected flesh. The man screams in pain and reflexively swings his sword down at her head. Trev ducks the clumsy blow and twists around the guard, free hand reaching up to grab his helmet.

She yanks down hard, and a sliver of skin appears at the nape of the man’s neck, wide enough for Trev to sink her second blade in, piercing his throat.

The guard sinks to his knees, gurgling and dripping blood into the water. Trev twists the blade in his neck and pulls it out as he sinks into the water. She grabs his shoulder and removes her other dagger, then turns quickly to check on Dorian.

She needn’t have been worried, however. The smell of burning flesh permeates the room, strong enough to cause Trev to gag. Dorian is standing over the second guard with a pinched expression.

“You okay?” Trev asks as she wipes her knives on the cloth at her waist.

“Uninjured and only slightly soggy,” Dorian sniffs, staring down at his feet with disdain. Smoke is rising from the body nearby. “Yourself?”

Trev checks herself reflexively but finds nothing. “Fine. What happened? This is definitely not the audience chamber.”

“I hate to say so, but I doubt we’ve just been translocated. The better question might be _when_ we are, rather than where.” He steps forward and peers out of the cell they’d landed in, and his eyes narrow. “Yes, I’m afraid I might be right.”

He gestures at something she can’t see, and she steps forward and sucks in a sharp breath. It’s red lyrium, growing out of the stone floor like daisies and glowing almost innocently in the dim torchlight. She knows what it can do, and the fact that the dungeon they’re in is covered with it is not comforting.

“You know what this is?” Dorian asks, stepping toward it and reaching out a hand.

Trev lunges forward and grabs his wrist, pulling him roughly away from the red lyrium. His eyes widen and he lets out a quiet sound of surprise but allows her to haul him away from the damned stuff. He peers over her shoulder at it curiously and raises an eyebrow down at her.

“It’s called red lyrium,” she says tersely. “Don’t touch it. It causes all sorts of freaky shit to happen. Makes you hear voices, causes possession, makes you lose your damn mind. This stuff killed Varric’s brother.”

Dorian blinks owlishly. “Really? I’ve never heard of it before.”

“We were hoping it was confined to the Deep Roads,” Trev says, glancing over her shoulder at it. It stains everything around it with its red light, almost like spilled blood. “There was some at the Temple of Sacred Ashes after it was destroyed.”

“So whoever caused the explosion must be working with Alexius. Kaffas, what is he thinking?” The last part seems to be to himself, not that Trev has an answer anyway.

“Let’s go,” she says, stepping toward the room’s exit with one last wary glance back at the red lyrium. “There must be something to tells us where - or when - we are. And how to get back.”

Dorian nods and follows her through the door. Together, they peer up the stairs, craning their necks to see. The stairway is empty, and they slowly begin climbing, Trev listening carefully for footsteps.

“So, Dorian,” Trev murmurs as he peeks around the corner at the top of the stairs, “what happens if we can’t get back to the present?”

“Then I suppose we become familiar with _this_  present,” he says grimly, motioning them forward. He glances toward the red lyrium peering out of the walls. “Whatever this present may entail.”

Trev swallows thickly.

The stairs lead into another room of cells with red lyrium bursting out of the stone of the walls and the floor. A looming chunk of it reaches high enough to brush the ceiling. The sight makes Trev’s stomach twist.

They skirt the edge of the red lyrium, Dorian pausing to eye it curiously again. Trev clenches her hands into fists, but he doesn’t reach out to touch it, just looks. He clicks his tongue. “Alexius has made rather a mess of the place, hasn’t he?” he asks with deceptive lightness. “This is _not_ , in fact, an improvement over the tacky Fereldan decorations.”

Up another set of stairs are even more cells. Trev absently wonders how many cells a keep like Redcliffe really needs. Surely not this many? A stream of water pours out of a crack in the ceiling, the smell of tepid water mixing unpleasantly with the wet straw. Dorian wrinkles his nose and skirts the pool of water; Trev prefers the water to the red lyrium on the walls.

Andraste looms over them from an alcove on the wall, flanked on both sides by shards of red lyrium; Trev avoids its stony gaze and notices that someone is inside one of the cells, leaning heavily against the bars. Their mouth is moving, but Trev can’t make out any words.

“Lysas?” she exclaims, suddenly recognizing him. The elf starts violently and whips his head up toward her with wide, frightened eyes. “Lysas, what are you doing here?”

“No, no, no!” the elf screams and falls to his knees and curling in on himself. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please no more!” He then devolves into sobs, leaving Trev standing there in shock.

“Friend of yours?” Dorian asks quietly into her ear.

Trev shakes her head. “I met him the same day I met you,” she says faintly, staring in horror as Lysas crawls into the corner, continuing to murmur intelligibly. “I-I don’t think there’s anything we can do for him.”

“No,” Dorian agrees.

They climb another set of stairs and emerge onto a landing, free of the cells at last. Across the way, a drawbridge is drawn up, and two men stand in front of it, too enthralled in conversation to notice them. Trev glances over the side of the landing and sees nothing but blackness.

She glances at Dorian with a gesture at the darkness, and he nods, mouth set in a grim line. Trev grips her daggers tightly and takes a step onto the metal grating, loud enough to echo off the walls.

The men whip around to see Trev and Dorian charging them, but before they can do much more than gasp in surprise, they’re being shoved off the side of the platform. Their terrified screams echo for what seems like forever. Trev doesn’t hear them hit the bottom.

“Not the way I’d want to go,” Dorian says with another glance downward. Silently, Trev agrees. “Which way now?”

Neither of the accessible doors offers any hint to what lay beyond them, so Trev picks the nearest one.

Red lyrium has grown through the wood of the door, and it takes two kicks for Trev to splinter the door enough to allow them through. How long has it been since someone had come down here?

Water floods these floors as well, and red lyrium lines the path. It doesn’t look much different than the prison level they had just left behind. Trev takes to looking in the cells, searching for someone else alive inside, and her search proves fruitful when she peers inside a cell filled to the brim with red lyrium.

Fiona’s gaunt face looks out from between the bars, eyes glowing a red that turns Trev’s stomach. She gapes at the two of them for several long seconds.

“How?” she rasps, voice scratchy from apparent disuse. She coughs and clutches at her chest. “You are alive?” she says with a mix of awe and bewilderment. “But we saw you disappear into that rift. You were gone.”

She doubles over and coughs harshly. It’s more of a hack, really, like someone who had been hiding in a pile of straw for too long. There is no sound of sickness or infection to it.

“Fiona,” Trev says then stops, unsure of what to say. Fiona stares at her with that piercing red gaze. There is red lyrium protruding from her shoulder, Trev can see now, and more along her side down to her hip. Trev stares in horror.

“The red lyrium,” Fiona gasps, touching a hand to her side, “it is a disease. Too long in close proximity, and you become this. And when it finally kills you, they come and mine your corpse for it.” She smiles sardonically. “These cells were full once, Herald.”

Bile rises in Trev’s throat, but she chokes it down. Dorian sets a hand on her shoulder and asks, “What is the date? Please, it’s very important.”

Fiona’s eyes slide to him. “Harvestmere,” she says after almost a minute of silence, as if she’d had to struggle for the answer. “9:42 Dragon.”

“A year?” Trev says. “All of this happened in only a year?” She turns to Dorian, who looks pale even with his complexion. “Dorian, staying here is _not_  an option.”

“Indeed,” Dorian says faintly and turns on his heel and takes a few steps away, hand to his chin.

Trev looks back at Fiona and takes in the gauntness of her cheeks, the ghostly pallor of her skin stretched thin over her bones. She had been slight to begin with, but now it seems like the red lyrium is absorbing everything, making Fiona even thinner than she had been to begin with.

“Please,” she rasps, looking at Trev with a face bereft of expression. “Stop this from happening. Alexius serves the Elder One, a creature so powerful that Alexius looks a mere child in comparison. Your Inquisition stood no chance without you and the mark.”

The grief and horror in Trev’s stomach settles into red anger. “After I’m done with him, Alexius will [i]wish[/i] I had killed him,” she snarls, and Fiona’s eyes crinkle at the edges.

“Thank you,” she murmurs.

“The amulet,” Dorian says suddenly, whirling on his heel and striding back to Trev. His eyes are gleaming, and he’s grinning widely. “If we can find it, then I just might be able to use it to return us to where we left. Either that or turn us into paste, but the alternative is not one I enjoy considering.”

Trev nods. Dorian had mentioned at their first meeting that he had been part of the development of Alexius’ time magic; if anyone could figure out how to get them back to the present, he could. “Okay, let’s go,” she says but turns back to Fiona, who is leaning heavily against the wall but still watching them with heavily lidded eyes.

She opens her mouth to say she’s sorry for what had happened, but Fiona stops her with a raised hand. “Your spymaster,” she says, and Trev’s blood instantly runs cold. “It has been a long time since the guards have been down here, but last I heard, she is here somewhere. As are Seeker Pentaghast and Vivienne.”

“I’ll find them,” Trev says firmly. They may not even be here anymore, may not even be alive, but if they are, she’ll tear down the walls to get to them. “Thank you, Grand Enchanter.”

Fiona smiles faintly, and Trev hears her sink to the floor as she turns toward the entrance. She doesn’t look back.

Dorian falls into step at her shoulder, looking lost in thought, and together they return to the landing above and head across to the other side. With any luck, one of her companions will be below; Trev tries not to get her hopes up too much.

Together, she and Dorian check the cells, but the first level is empty save for red lyrium. Trev leads the way down the stairs to the second level but pauses when she hears a voice.

_“The light shall lead her safely through the paths of this world and into the next.”_

Even a blasphemer like Trev recognizes the Chant of Light, and she hurries down the last few steps and rounds the corner, boots almost slipping on the wet stone. All the breath in her lungs rushes out when she recognizes Cassandra tucked in the corner of a cell.

She looks as gaunt as Fiona, but she is aware enough to look up when Trev crashes into the bars of her cell, hands grasping hurriedly at the padlock there. Red lyrium has erupted across the line of her shoulders and down her left arm, and she stares at Trev with the same red eyes as Fiona.

“It’s you,” she says, eyes wide. Trev smashes the pommel of her dagger against the padlock, and it breaks with a loud crack and falls to the floor in pieces. “Maker, is it true? Has Andraste given us another chance?”

“No,” Trev says, too loud in the quiet of the cells. She yanks the door open and rushes to Cassandra’s side but stops herself before she reaches out to touch her. “Andraste had nothing to do with it.”

Cassandra looks steadily at her for a moment, then drops her eyes to her crossed legs. “I failed you,” she mutters, and Trev’s throat constricts. “I failed everyone. The world must truly be ending if the dead are returning to walk the world.”

“It’s not over yet,” Trev says firmly and sinks to one knee in front of her. Cassandra lifts her head to look at her, and she looks at her with such pain in her expression that Trev almost can’t stand it. “I won’t let it end like this. We can go back, back to when Alexius sent us away.”

“Truly?” Cassandra says incredulously, then shakes her head ruefully. “It doesn’t matter if you really can or not. I will be with the Maker soon, and if there is even the slightest chance that I can do something worthwhile, I will help you.”

She presses a hand to the wall to support herself and shakily rises to her feet. Once she is steady, Cassandra takes a deep breath and rolls her shoulders, some of the red lyium along her arm cracking with the movement. How long had she been in that position, Trev wonders silently but doesn’t ask. She doesn’t really want to know.

“If you truly can fix things, then you should know how,” Cassandra says as she takes the proffered sword and shield from a silent Dorian. Trev hadn’t noticed him leaving to retrieve them or where he’d even found them down here. “The Elder One took control not long after you disappeared. He came with an army of demons and overran Fereldan and then Orlais after Empress Celene was murdered. That is-is all I could learn before it became hard to concentrate.”

Trev feels sick to her stomach. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” she says quietly, and Cassandra looks at her for a long moment before smiling faintly.

“But you are here now,” she says, then steps past Trev toward the stairs. “Follow me; Vivienne is below us.”

Indeed, Vivienne is sitting cross-legged in a cell of her own, and she sneers when Trev rushes forward to break her lock. She looks as haggard as Cassandra and Fiona but seems to have maintained her usual attitude.

“Begone, demon,” she spits, glaring up at Trev through the bars. Trev’s fingers fumble briefly on the lock, taken aback at the venom in her voice. “I will not fall for your illusion.”

“And where does Cassandra come in to this illusion?” Trev asks, sliding the blade of her dagger into the key slot.

Vivienne continues glaring, though Trev sees her eyes slide over her shoulder to look at Cassandra. “Please,” she sneers, “as if I haven’t seen every trick you demons have to offer.”

Somehow Vivienne’s attitude has revived a bit of Trev’s. She smirks as the lock clicks open. “Then surely you will be able to overpower us if we truly are demons? Or have you become too weak to even overpower a few measly demons?”

“Well, if you are here to finally destroy me, at least you’re believable,” Vivienne says with a huff. She slowly rises to her feet and dusts off her robes, not that it does any good, and strides out of the cell as if she was entering a marquee instead.

“How are you?” Trev asks. She can’t see any lyrium growing out of her body, but Vivienne’s eyes are red nevertheless and there is a faint red glow to her skin.

Vivienne tilts her chin up with a haughty frown; despite herself, Trev smiles. “I’m dying, of course, but don’t worry your pretty little head about it. My magic is just as deadly as it was when you died.”

“Technically-” Trev begins, but Vivienne clicks her tongue and waves a hand.

“I really don’t care, darling. I am dying, remember? And I’d really like to hurt something right now.”

She smiles then, all teeth, and the sight makes Trev’s skin crawl.

“I believe that can be arranged,” Dorian says from Trev’s shoulder. “We need to find Alexius.”

Vivienne nods, apparently expecting this answer. “Lead on then, Herald. I will follow.”

The four of them slowly make their way back upstairs and approach the drawbridge blocking the way forward. Vivienne steps forward and peers at it before reaching out and blasting the chain with a lightning bolt. There’s a loud groaning sound, and the drawbridge sinks on one side, chain broken from the impact and dangling down into the darkness. Dorian quickly does the same to the other chain, and the bridge falls with a loud crash.

“They’ll know we’re here now,” Cassandra says. She raises her shield up and leads the way before Trev can take a step forward. Silently, Trev falls into step behind her, and if she tries hard enough, she can almost imagine that everything is normal.

“The only way from here is up,” Dorian says, almost cheerfully.

The stairs lead to the guard barracks, and Trev grimaces at the bodies that lay scattered across the room, all in varying states of decay. Cassandra and Vivienne both step over the corpses without hesitation, and the lack of a reaction from either of them is telling.

“Is Leliana still alive?” Trev asks, her throat suddenly dry.

In front of her, Cassandra stiffens and opens the nearest door, which leads to nothing but a bunk room. “I did not know she was here,” she says haltingly, stepping toward the next door. “But she is strong; she won’t allow them the pleasure of her death.”

Before Trev can do anything other than nod, trusting Cassandra’s judgment, the door she opens leaves her face to face with a squad of Venatori guards, apparently come to check on the noise.

Trev moves first, sinking a dagger into the nearest guard’s neck. The other guards’ startled cries draw the attention of her companions, and there’s the familiar crackle of Vivienne’s ice magic as Trev whirls on the other guards.

Cassandra shatters the frozen guard with a hard swing from her shield, and the man crumples to the ground lifelessly. She spins her sword, and Trev slides underneath the swing to stab her dagger into the man’s knee as he hurriedly blocks Cassandra’s swipe.

When he sinks to the floor in pain, Cassandra finishes him with a stab through his collarbone. She sets a boot on his shoulder to remove her sword just as Dorian burns the last guard alive, the man’s shrieks echoing through the barren hallways.

Trev cleans her blades on her belt. Even a year in confinement hadn’t dulled Cassandra’s battle skills. She and Trev had fought together just as easily as they had on their way to Redcliffe castle only a few hours ago. Or, it had just been a few hours in Trev’s mind.

The battle had only lasted a few seconds, but from the way Cassandra stretches her arms and swings her sword a few times, it had been enough to strain her disused muscles. Vivienne, by contrast, doesn’t even look ruffled.

Cassandra nods at Trev’s questioning look but allows Trev to lead the way through up the stairs, rotating her shoulder in its socket as she follows.

The hallway they enter is lit with veilfire and lined with even more red lyrium, but Trev leads the way unflinchingly. Blood is splattered across the floor and the walls, but there are no bodies; screams coming from a nearby room tell Trev all she wants to know about this area of the castle.

And then she hears Leliana’s voice, raspy but unmistakable. Trev hurries toward the sound as a cry of pain echoes down the hall. She hears Cassandra behind her, her heavy footsteps unmistakable. The door isn’t locked; Trev kicks it down anyway.

The Venatori inside whips around at the sudden intrusion, eyes wide with shock, and he recoils at the sight of them. But before Trev can even raise a hand to throw a dagger, legs wrap around the man’s neck.

Trev pauses, and there’s a sickening crack as the man’s neck breaks. He drops limply to the floor, revealing Leliana hanging behind him. Trev’s sigh of relief catches in her throat when she sees the state she’s in.

Leliana is practically a walking corpse. Her complexion, already pale like most Orlesians, is almost gray now, and she looks one hundred years older, her skin seeming as if it could slide off her bones at any moment. Cassandra steps forward and begins searching the guard’s pockets.

The key is quickly produced, but Leliana only spares Cassandra a brief glance before looking to Trev instead. “You’re alive,” she says as Cassandra sets her on her feet. She only wavers briefly before stepping forward.

Her feet are bare, and the shift and pants she’s wearing are threadbare. She looks smaller than before, but mentally, she seems to be much more coherent than either Cassandra or Vivienne.

“Shit’s sake, Leliana, what did they do to you?” Trev blurts, reaching out to touch her only to stop herself. Back in the present, she’d never seen anyone touch Leliana, not even Cassandra and Josephine.

Leliana shakes her head. “It’s not important,” she says bitterly. “What is important is that you’re here. You need to end this.” She steps past Trev toward the door, wavering only slightly as she walks. “Alexius is in the audience chamber; I hear he never leaves these days.”

“Wait a minute,” Dorian says as Leliana brushes past him without a glance, “you’re not going to ask how we got here?”

“No,” Leliana says darkly. “Maker, and mages always wonder why people fear them. Come, let’s find Alexius.”

She strides out the door, Vivienne following her, and after a glance at Cassandra, who looks even more grim than before, Trev follows her.

Dorian, taken aback, takes a few moments to hurry after them. “The amulet- it’s the anchor. If we can get it, I can use it to stop this from ever-”

“Enough!” Leliana roars, rounding on him with a venomous expression. As gaunt as she is, it’s more intimidating than usual. Dorian actually takes a step back, eyes wide. “This is all just a bad dream to you, some future you hope you will never have to face, but to us, this is _reality_. What we suffered is real, and just because _you_  can go back does not mean that we can! This is our present, and there is nothing we can do about it!”

In the silence, Leliana’s ragged breaths are loud. Her eyes are shining dangerously, and Dorian seems to have lost all ability to speak. Trev swallows thickly.

“I’m sorry,” she manages to say, her voice threatening to break. Leliana looks at her, face expressionless, then spins on her heel and stalks away.

Trev and Dorian both stand there, dumbstruck. Granted, Trev hasn’t known Leliana very long, but she has never seen Leliana so outwardly furious. Even when Trev had argued about killing her agent, Leliana had never raised her voice.

“Come on,” Cassandra says quietly next to Trev, and Trev forces her feet forward to follow her.

They walk in silence for several minutes, Leliana leading the way and favoring her left side slightly. Trev wants to ask what had caused it, but she’s afraid of Leliana’s reaction almost as much as the answer. There are questions to which she doesn’t know if she could stand to hear the answers.

Trev hears a familiar crackling coming from up ahead; her steps falter briefly before she hurries forward and pushes open the door, slipping easily past Leliana to do so. To her dismay, a rift is sitting near the ceiling, creaking ominously.

She throws a hand out toward it and feels the now-familiar pulling sensation in her palm as the mark connects to the rift. Before she can do anything to it, she hears demons screeching nearby. She quickly pulls her palm away, breaking the thread of light connecting them, and whirls with a dagger in her right hand to see a shade quickly headed her way.

Wisps shriek as they emerge from the rift as well; one is cut off as Vivienne freezes it with a wave of her hand. “The shade, Trevelyan!” she cries and turns toward the group of wisps beginning to surround her. Trev waves Dorian in Vivienne’s direction, and he nods and hurries toward her.

Cassandra crashes into the shade’s side, the two of them flying away before Trev can even draw her other dagger. She pauses and glances back at Leliana, who is standing tensely near the wall, and makes a decision that she’s not certain is a smart one.

“Leliana!” she calls and tosses one of her daggers when Leliana turns to her. She catches it easily despite her obvious surprise, but Trev just grins at her and turns back to where Cassandra is bashing at the shade’s head with her shield.

The shade shrieks in frustration and flails its arms vainly at Cassandra in a desperate attempt to escape. Trev lunges forward and sinks her dagger into its side; it whips its head around and screams into her face. The air it expels is foul and makes her skin crawl, but she grins when Cassandra takes the opportunity while it’s distracted to sink her sword into it.

Cassandra turns on her heel, ripping her sword through the shade’s side, and it lets out a shriek and begins fading away, the pieces of it being drawn back into the rift. “Disrupt it!” Cassandra yells, and Trev does.

A wave of green explodes from the rift, and Trev hears the wisps across the room shriek in pain. A wave of fire washes over them, and they are all pulled back into the rift, which crackles almost unhappily at their defeat.

“Another wave,” Vivienne says. The hems of her robe are torn, but she shows no signs of concern. She raises a hand as the rift spits out several more wisps, and Trev feels the familiar chill of Vivienne’s barrier magic surrounding her.

“Four of them,” Cassandra reports, then bangs the side of her sword against her shield, the sound reverberating around the room. Every wisp turns to her and shrieks before diving at her, arms reaching greedily.

Fire erupts in a circle around Cassandra’s feet, and she startles briefly before regaining herself and settling into an attack stance. The wisps hurtle to a stop around her, shocked into stillness by the sudden fire, and Trev leaps as Vivienne and Cassandra attack, a cone of ice erupting from Vivienne’s hand and Cassandra swinging her sword with ferocity.

One of the wisps catches a hand on Trev’s chest, and she feels the force only faintly as the barrier absorbs the impact. Since the blow doesn’t knock her back, her knife sinks easily into the spirit’s faint form. She doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to the feeling of striking wisps with a weapon. She likens the feeling the most to water, blade sinking through with little resistance but without the feeling of causing any damage, but it’s not a perfect analogy.

The wisp recoils in pain nevertheless, and Trev punches with her empty fist. Off to the side, Dorian twirls his staff and barrages the wisp with fireballs, blasting it into pieces for the rift to draw back. Trev glances up in the rift’s direction just as it ruptures, gaping open and ready for her to seal.

It feels almost like the bones in her hand are being pulled out, but the feeling fades once the last threads of the rift vanish. She clenches her hand into a fist and stares at the mark for a moment, glowing brightly even through her fingers.

“We should have expected that, I suppose,” Trev says, withholding a sigh. “There will be more, I’m sure. Keep your eyes open.”

Cassandra nods, then bends her arm over her shoulder with a slight grimace. Still hurting, Trev supposes. Vivienne, meanwhile, looks as unruffled as ever and turns to Dorian with a raised eyebrow. Dorian, for his part, looks somewhat uncertain at her sudden scrutiny.

“You cannot cast barriers?” she asks sharply, and Dorian shakes his head, looking embarrassed.

“There hasn’t been much call for actual combat in my life until now, I’m afraid. Barriers are something I neglected in favor of other magic.”

Vivienne lifts her chin and sniffs disapprovingly. “I’d suggest reading up once this is over, dear,” she says snidely; Dorian just nods mutely, looking chastised.

Trev turns to hide her amused smile and sees Leliana approaching them. “Are you okay?” she asks, and Leliana nods and holds out the dagger Trev had tossed her, hilt up. “No, keep it. It’s not much, but it should be enough to keep you safe.”

“If you’re sure,” Leliana says quietly after a moment. She stares down at the dagger, plain and undecorated and nothing like the gleaming blades Trev had caught brief glances of in Leliana’s own hands, before turning it to hold it properly. “I appreciate it.” She sounds sincere; Trev grins.

They stand there looking at each other for a few more seconds before Leliana glances away and points at a door, motioning for Cassandra to lead the way. Together, they climb the stairs and emerge into a courtyard.

The grass is a deep brown and obviously long-dead, and even more bodies are strewn across the yard. Bones are piled in one corner, bits of flesh still clinging to some of them. Trev averts her eyes and catches sight of the Breach instead.

“Holy shit,” she swears, looking at the green light stretched across the sky and mixing with the dark gray of the clouds. What had once been contained to only a corner of the heavens had apparently spread unhindered to consume the skies. Bits of the castle appear to have broken off to float along through the air, heavy stone walls and towers lazily drifting along with the clouds.

“The Elder One,” Leliana says from Trev’s shoulder, her eyes, dark and angry, following Trev’s own to the heavens. “He and his Venatori were responsible for opening the Breach. With no way to close it, it is eating away at the fabric of the world.”

“Is there anything that didn’t go wrong in this future?” Trev mutters, half to herself. Leliana snorts and steps past her toward the stairs, and Trev follows her closely.

Another rift hangs near the courtyard’s exit. Trev quickly steps forward and throws out an arm to stop Leliana, who growls unhappily, but Trev can’t be bothered to worry about angering her right now. Like it or not, the rest of them are in better physical shape than Leliana and less likely to be skewered by a demon’s rogue claws.

A gaggle of shades appear and slither forward, and Trev kicks the nearest one in the face. There’s a crunching sound, but before the shade can do anything more than recoil, Trev rips her dagger through it, sending it back into the rift.

Dorian skewers a shade that rushes him, then smacks it away with a twirl of his staff. While it’s prone on the ground, Cassandra smashes it with a boot and stabs her sword into its head. As it fades away, another shade takes its place, hands grasping at the front of Dorian’s robes.

He recoils as the shade looms over him, screeching directly into his face, but the shade’s claws are ripping at his robes, holding him hostage. Trev moves to help him - Cassandra is busy fighting off two shades on her own - but before she can take more than a few steps, an arrow whizzes past her ear and strikes the shade’s face, giving Dorian the opportunity to set it aflame.

When Trev turns, she isn’t surprised to see Leliana with a bow in hand, already notching another arrow. She nods at Trev and fires, the arrow striking one of Cassandra’s shades, and Trev grins. It’s probably painful, if the way she’d been walking was any indication, but Leliana draws the bow back, thumb brushing her cheek, and fires again without a grimace.

There are only two shades left, one doing its best to avoid Cassandra’s heavy blows and the other trapped between Dorian and Vivienne’s magic, a wall of ice on one side and roaring flames on the other. Trev hurries toward Cassandra.

She corners the demon against Cassandra’s shield, and it shrieks furiously at her just as Cassandra’s sword swings down and slices it in half. Nearby, the other shade has vanished as well.

“Thank you,” Trev hears Dorian say to Leliana. “I was afraid it was going to try and eat me for dinner.”

Leliana’s only reply is a nod before she brushes past him to retrieve the arrows she had fired. The quiver she had found is half-full; Trev hopes it will be enough to see them through the rest of the castle.

“Leliana,” Dorian says hesitantly. “Do you know what happened to Felix?”

Trev sees the line of Leliana’s shoulders stiffen. “Yes,” she says tersely, sliding the arrows into the quiver slung across her shoulder and turning toward the door leading back into the castle.

“And?”

“You’ll see for yourself soon enough.”

Dorian makes a noise of frustration as Leliana steps through the door, and Trev steps forward to clap him on the shoulder reassuringly before jogging after Leliana.

Parts of the staircases have broken away; rubble is scattered across the floor, mixed with bodies and bones and red lyrium. The destruction only gets worse the longer they walk, and Trev is reminded of the Breach slowly pulling the castle apart to float into the sky.

The entranceway to the audience chamber is pristine by comparison but crawling with Venatori. Three of them are sat together in front of the door to where Alexius is apparently hiding, staffs leaning near them, and a squad of warriors linger near a set of stairs, talking amongst themselves. Word of what had happened in the lower levels apparently hadn’t reached this far.

Trev hears the creak of a bow, and as she watches, an arrow sinks into the skull of one of the mages at the table. He slumps forward onto the wood, the arrow protruding from his temple, and the other mages scream and recoil, one almost falling over the railing in his shock.

Icicles burst from the floor in the middle of the group of warriors, exploding into shards and sending the four men scrambling in different direction, hands flying to cover their faces. One has blood pouring down his cheeks, apparently having reacted too slowly.

Leliana draws again, and Trev rushes toward the mages, Dorian on her heels. He sends out a line of fire to precede them, and one of the mages yells something in Tevene before swiping a hand at the flames, snuffing them out.

“Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” Dorian asks brightly and makes to stab him with the end of his staff. The mages swats it away and snarls, and Trev takes the opportunity to slip beneath his guard to sink her blade into his chest, piercing a lung.

The mage wheezes, hand flying to the wound, and Trev kicks him away. He stumbles backward and collapses onto his back, gasping for breath. Behind him, the last mage raises his staff; Trev darts forward and tackles him to the floor. The staff falls from his grasp as he struggles to push Trev off of him, but she shoves a knee into his gut and aims her dagger at his throat.

He shoves hard, his terror giving him enough strength to throw Trev off of him. Before he can get to his feet, however, Dorian appears and stabs the end of his staff through his throat.

Trev takes his hand and lets him help her back to her feet. The other mage is still alive, straining to breath, and Trev takes mercy on him and opens his throat. His breath rattles briefly in his throat before his chest stills.

A glance toward the others finds that they’ve killed the squad of warriors. Blood is splattered across Cassandra’s breastplate and Vivienne’s robes, but neither seems bothered. Trev can hear ice crackling, remnants of Vivienne’s magic clinging to the stone floor and the bodies.

“Alexius is in there,” Leliana says suddenly. Trev hadn’t noticed her approaching. “I’ve heard he barely leaves the audience chamber these days. His paranoia is driving him mad.”

Trev sucks on her teeth. “You think he knows we’re coming for him?” she asks, mostly to Dorian.

“Most likely,” he says. “I expect he knows where he sent us.”

The door to the throne room is thick and barred shut. Trev gives it an experimental push and isn’t surprised when it doesn’t move an inch. “Well,” she says after a moment, smirking, “it is a _wooden_ door.”

She steps back and glances over to see Dorian grinning. “My pleasure,” he says with a sweeping bow, and then the door bursts into flames, the heat quickly warming Trev down to her toes. She hadn’t noticed the chill of the castle until now.

The flames die down quickly, revealing the audience chamber. It’s just as filthy as the rest of the castle, rock and debris piled everywhere and red lyrium bursting from all corners and spreading across the floor. At the back of the room in front of the fireplace, standing still as stone with his back to the door, is Alexius.

Trev sees red. The only thing that stops her from rushing him is Dorian’s heavy hand on her shoulder. He steps forward and leads the way toward the back of the room, expression solemn.

“So this is the end,” Alexius says, his voice gravelly. He turns to face them, his face drawn and pale, dark circles under his eyes. In other circumstances, Trev might feel bad for him. “I’ve been waiting for you for over a year now. My final failure, as it were.”

“Was it worth it?” Dorian asks, voice deceptively calm. “Was destroying the world and your own sanity worth it?”

Alexius stares at him with sad eyes. “Does it really matter?” he asks tiredly. “What’s done is done. I’ve failed; all that’s left to do is wait for the end.”

“That’s it?” Trev snarls, clenching her fists until they hurt. “Everything you did, all the pain you caused, the people you _killed and totured_ , and that’s all you say? The world is fucking ending and you’re just sitting here wallowing!” She’s shaking with pure anger now, jaw clenched painfully. “I’m going to  _kill_  you.”

Amazingly, Alexius smiles. “Please do. Dying by your hand will be better than whatever the Elder One has planned for me. He’s coming, you know, to punish me.”

Trev stands there, unable to say anything through her anger. She wants to rip his throat out with her bare hands, rip open his chest and split his ribs, and he’s fucking  _smiling_  at her, like she’s blasted Andraste come to save him in his hour of need. Her eyes burn as she glares up at him.

Sudden movement draws all their attention off to the side where Leliana is now standing with Trev’s dagger pressed to the throat of another man, even more pale and drawn than Alexius but with no light in his eyes. Leliana’s face is twisted almost unrecognizingly with hatred; drops of blood ooze from the man’s neck. Trev hadn’t noticed her moving, too consumed by her own anger.

Alexius lets out a cry and throws a hand out, expression one of absolute horror. “Felix, no!”

“What?” Dorian snaps, taking a half-step forward, eyebrows pinched. “That’s _Felix_? Alexius, _what have you done_?” Dorian stares at his friend in pure horror, his face drained of color.

“He would have died, Dorian!” Alexius cries. “But I have saved him!”

“By using the rest of us!” Leliana spits, and Trev feels bile rise in her throat at the revelation of the cause of Leliana’s appearance.

Alexius doesn’t seem to hear her. “Please, don’t hurt my son. I’ll do anything, please. He’s all I have left.” He turns and looks at Trev imploringly. “Stop her! _Stop her!_ ”

“No,” Trev says, and Leliana opens Felix’s throat.

The scream Alexius looses is primal. A wave of magic bursts from him, knocking them all to the floor and sending Leliana flying through the air to land in a heap against the wall. Blood stains the rug in front of the fire as Alexius continues to scream, his voice growing hoarse as he continues to release his grief.

Trev doesn’t care. Heedless of her companions sprawled on the floor behind her, Cassandra groaning in pain and Vivienne coughing deeply and Dorian taking gasping breaths, she pushes herself to her feet and dives for Alexius’ throat.

As her hands close around his windpipe, Alexius looks up and meets her eyes, and then electricity surges from Trev’s fingers and through Alexius’ body. Trev screams and pulls back a hand to punch him in the face, his nose breaking easily beneath her knuckles, then she pulls her fist back and hits him again and again and again.

Hands eventually grab her elbow and pull her away, and Trev goes limp, suddenly exhausted. Dorian wraps an arm around her waist to keep her upright, and Trev stares at what’s left of Alexius.

He’s blackened beyond all recognition, the purple lightning having fried every inch of his body, and smoke is rising lazily from the corpse, slowly drifting toward the ceiling. Already, Trev can smell the burned flesh, but it doesn’t turn her stomach now.

Dorian eases her to the floor, and she drops her head into her hands and tries to calm down. She takes a deep breath and lets it out through her nose and repeats it until she doesn’t feel like she’ll explode in a cloud of electricity anymore.

When she lifts her head, Leliana is standing a few feet away, watching her with an unreadable expression. Behind her, Vivienne’s lips are pursed, but she looks sympathetic. Trev drops her head back down, unable to stand the sight; it looks too much like pity.

“You’re a mage,” Dorian says, and it isn’t a question, not after her display. She nods and keeps her eyes on her hands in her lap. “Can’t say I saw that coming.”

Trev laughs once hollowly. “That was kind of the point.” Dorian hums but doesn’t say anything else; his grip on her hand is tight but not painful.

“Is this what you need?” Cassandra says suddenly, and Trev looks up and around to see her crouched over Alexius’ body, that damned pendant dangling from her fingers.

“Yes, thank you,” Dorian says, jumping to his feet and hurrying over to take it from her. He pauses and looks down at the remains of Alexius; smoke curls around his head. “To think I once admired this man above all others,” he mutters. “ To see him fall so far.”

He lowers his head and rubs at his face, and Trev averts her eyes and sees Cassandra do the same. She looks to Trev instead, looking somewhat like a lost puppy.

“Are you okay?” she asks quietly after stepping closer to give Dorian his privacy.

“No,” Trev says with a bitter laugh. She rubs at her own face and stands; Cassandra’s hands hover briefly before she returns them to her sides, looking frustrated. “I just need some time, and maybe enough ale to drown a Qunari.”

Cassandra nods, looking understanding but still concerned. She seems to have no interest in broaching a conversation about Trev being a mage, and Trev isn’t sure if she’s relieved or not.

“Alright,” Dorian says suddenly, thankfully distracting Trev from her muddled feelings, “give me an hour to work out the specifics, and I should be able to reopen the portal and send us home.”

“An hour?” Leliana echoes sharply, and Dorian looks around at her with wide eyes. “No, you must go now! If Alexius spoke true, the Elder One could be here any moment!”

As if on cue, the castle shudders, and a few pieces of stone drop from the ceiling around them. Trev reaches out to steady Leliana, but she avoids the touch. The familiar screeching of demons echoes through the halls, sending chills down Trev’s spine.

“We need to slow him down,” Cassandra says and looks to Vivienne, who nods back. Cassandra turns to Trev and Dorian. “We will hold the main door and keep them occupied for as long as we can.”

“Wait, no,” Trev says, a cold dread sinking into the pit of her stomach. “That’s suicide.”

Cassandra looks at her, and her eyes are the brightest they’ve been in this terrible future. “It is,” she says simply. She smiles then, proud and bright. “Don’t let it be in vain, Trev.” Then she turns on her heel and strides toward the door, back straight and her head held high, marching to her death.

It’s the first time she’d ever called her Trev.

Trev turns to Vivienne, wanting to argue, to try and convince her to stop, but Vivienne looks as determined as Cassandra. There are no alternatives, Trev knows, but she’s never been one to ask others to die for her.

“Do be careful, dear,” Vivienne says in her usual tone. “Don’t let your rage consume you.” Trev can’t do much more than nod dumbly before Vivienne turns and leaves the room as well, a cold silence settling in her wake.

Dorian turns away and begins fiddling with the pendant, leaving Trev to watch her friends’ retreating backs, pressure building behind her eyes.

“Dying in battle is much preferable to a slow death at the hands of the Venatori,” Leliana says from Trev’s side. “And rotting away in a cell is no way for warriors of Cassandra’s and Vivienne’s stature to go. This is how we choose to die.”

Trev understands, even if she doesn’t want to. “I’m sorry,” she says again, and to her surprise, Leliana smiles and reaches out to squeeze her elbow.

“Go home,” she says softly and reaches up to swipe a thumb across Trev’s cheek and catch the traitorous tear that had escaped. “Go home and fix things and forget us.” Trev nods and doesn’t tell her that she thinks she never will.

They stand there, the moment stretching on. Leliana’s fingers are warm against Trev’s cheek. Then she turns away and draws her bow, placing her back to Trev to watch the remains of the throne room’s door.

“Hurry, Dorian,” she says as demons screech again in the distance. “You have as much time as I have arrows.”

Dorian doesn’t respond, but Trev glances back at him to see that his shoulders are tense as he works. Reluctantly, Trev steps toward him and away from Leliana’s back. She looks so frail standing there with her stained clothes and gaunt figure. Trev hears her murmuring the Chant and knows Cassandra is doing the same elsewhere.

The floor shudders again beneath their feet, and Trev hears Cassandra faintly in the distance yelling a battle cry. The Elder One and his forces have arrived. Trev takes a shuddering breath, Leliana sets an arrow on the string, and Dorian curses under his breath.

“Almost,” Dorian mutters, and the amulet begins to glow faintly.

A demon screeches nearby, and Trev whirls toward the noise to see a Terror stalking into the room, something clutched in its claws. It bellows again and tosses its burden aside, and Trev almost vomits as Cassandra’s limp body lands in a heap, eyes wide and unseeing.

“Dorian,” she whines.

“I’m doing my best,” he snaps in return and swats at her back with a hand.

An arrow strikes the Terror in its face, and it recoils and screeches angrily. Leliana draws another arrow as a squad of Venatori stride past the Terror; one takes an arrow to the neck and goes down only to be replaced by three more.

As Leliana readies to fire again, one of the Venatori beats her to it. An arrow sinks into Leliana’s shoulder, sending her stumbling back a few steps, but she just reaches up and snaps the end off the arrow and fires one of her own, piercing the archer’s eye.

Trev doesn’t realized she’s moved until Dorian grabs her by the back of her belt and holds fast. The arrow has given the Venatori the opening they need to close in so Leliana can’t fire any arrows. She uses the bow itself as a melee weapon instead, catching one of the Venatori on the chest and sending him spinning to the floor.

There’s a sound behind Trev, and she turns to see that Dorian has succeeded. The portal has opened and is quickly expanding to engulf them. A cry has her whirling back toward the battle to see one of the Venatori has grabbed Leliana, an arm hooked around her throat, and as Trev watches, unable to do anything but stare on in horror, Leliana smiles and closes her eyes.

The Venatori opens her throat. Trev screams. The portal rushes over her, and the bloody audience chamber vanishes.

**Author's Note:**

> Join me on this tiny, tiny boat that is Inquisitor/Leliana. Write the fic you want to read.


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